Monday Morning Mail, 23rd Feb 2015

Good morning!

I wonder where you'd put Christianity in a Sunday newspaper. Would you put it with the headlines, or in the lifestyle section with the magazine? It might seem like a silly question, but actually it makes all the difference in the world, and Paul talks about it a lot in Galatians 3, which we looked at yesterday morning.

You see when the Galatians started out, they would have put it clearly in the "news" section, but by the time Paul wrote them, they'd have moved to the "lifestyle" section, and Paul gives them two big reasons why it needs to be back in "news":

First, Christianity begins with news. It begins with the great news of Jesus – God become man, crucified for us and raised from the dead. It begins in our lives with God himself coming to live in us by his Spirit, not because we follow the right lifestyle but because we hear the good news and respond by trusting it. And even though there's a lot of lifestyle stuff in the Bible when God talks about how his chosen people should respond to him, long before that it began with God bringing good news to Abraham, and Abraham chose to respond by trusting God. If we try to make Christianity about lifestyle, it means pushing Jesus and his crucifixion and resurrection out of the picture. It means pushing God's presence by his Spirit out and replacing it with human effort, and it cuts us off from God's big picture and plan throughout the whole Bible, because that is based on the good news of God's promise to us.

Second, Christianity only works if it is news. If Christianity is about lifestyle, it ends up being awful news for us, because we can never live a lifestyle that comes up to God's standards. Paul writes in v10 "all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written 'cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.'" If Christianity is lifestyle advice, it only serves to show up how foolishly we live our lives. But Christianity is actually news, and it's the best news in the world. Because Jesus took the curse that is rightfully ours on himself and died, so that when we trust in his good news, God credits us with his righteousness. There's nothing we can do that can earn God's well done, but because of what Jesus has done for us, when we trust his good news, God credits all the good that Jesus did to us. Our failures get credited to him, and his righteousness gets credited to us. The law and lifestyle columns say "do this" and so condemn us. The Bible tells us "Jesus has done it all; all we need to do is trust him."

If I was reading this, I'd probably be thinking something along the lines of "Fine, fine – good to be reminded of the big truths of the faith." But actually, the way that I live shows me that I need to hear and understand them all over again. So often we try to answer the problems that we come across in life with "try harder" or "be nice to people" and so on. But if Christianity is about news, not lifestyle, then just telling ourselves to try harder isn't going to work. We need to come back to the cross, and spend time thinking about the great news of what Jesus has done for us, because that's where real change comes from.

So often we live as if it all depends on us. We might say a quick prayer at the start because that's the right thing to do, but then carry on. But if it's about God's power not ours, then surely prayer is the main business. We often have such low expectations of what God will do because we pray and act as if it all depends on us. What would St Jude's look like if we really saw that it's about his work and his power from his Spirit at work in us? One thing's for sure – we'd pray a lot more!

Something to think about this week!

All the best,

John